It was the morning Harley was gone.

Karkat was soaked as he raced down the street. Shielding his two children from the heavy rain, he struggled to take them back to their apartment. It was only a couple blocks away. A couple blocks, and yet Jade didn't make it. They were barely outside the same vicinity, yet Karkat couldn't save her.

He tried not to, but he couldn't help but look back. The area cleaners were already closing the back of the truck, still laughing at Karkat's recent fit. Karkat clenched his fist, but then he remembered the children, and forced himself to keep going.

He only found out about Jade's death minutes ago, but he already wanted the memory out of his mind. Brown river water dripping from the furry, white coat. The wide, clouded green eyes that had once been shining days ago, and never will again. To the people, it was just an oddly colored wolf that drowned in the river, but Karkat knew otherwise. Jade was dead.

Fur brushed under his hands. Karkat snapped out of it to see his son and daughter half-transformed into little wolf pups. "Jesus Christ," he hissed. Shielding the children closer to his chest, he made a run for it across the crosswalk.

A couple of buildings and a hallway away, he finally made it to the apartment door, ignoring the glances of the passerby on the way there. Running as fast as you can, covering up two furry beings in your arms, and looking like you've obviously just been crying was a super shitty combination if you wanted to avoid attention. He fumbled for the key, his franticness either slowing him down or making the whole process feel slow.

"Daddy, I wanna go home," his two-year-old daughter, Marie, whimpered at his feet.

"We are, now be quiet for a second," he said. He moved his other child, Henri, to his other arm as he shakily unlocked the door. It popped open. "Hurry up before you're seen." He hustled his daughter in before closing the door behind him. He frantically locked it as soon as it closed, then turned on the light.

At first, the apartment's appearance made everything feel as if the day hadn't happened. Jade's presence still lingered, in the lime green furniture and the kids' squiddle dolls and the little pots of flowers on the window sill. But as soon as it came, it left, and suddenly the familiarity of the place didn't feel so pleasant anymore.

A lump caught in Karkat's throat again. He grabbed the edge of the counter, balled his other hand into a fist and clenched his teeth, as if that was going to control the shaking he was feeling. Marie and Henri watched him curiously, Marie's red-colored wolf ears perked up atop her head. He couldn't cry in front of them. He couldn't scream; he couldn't lose it like he did when he saw Jade's body. He couldn't do any of that, not now, not around his children. He'd already done that.

"Daddy?" Karkat's eyes shifted to Marie. Her head was cocked, and her innocent eyes tinted with a concern he wasn't ready to see. "Where's Mommy?" She didn't understand. She still thought she couldn't be separated from her parents like that.

Karkat couldn't. Unwanted tears swam in his vision. His legs felt like jelly, his throat painfully constricted. He bit his lip to the point that any more pressure would probably draw blood.

"Daddy?" Marie's words sounded tearful this time. Stop. Just stop. "Where Mommy?"

Karkat lost it. "She's gone!" he shrieked, tears streaming down his face. He collapsed to his knees and bawled into his hands.